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The owner of the Curzon Soho cinema, which is under threat from the second stage of Crossrail development, has said that the much-loved West End cinema might have to move home for a decade before finally returning to a brand-new building at the same site.
'The Crossrail development is happening,' said Curzon CEO Philip Knatchbull, talking to Screendaily. 'The station could be up to one kilometre long, stretching from the current Tottenham Court Road tube station to our venue on Shaftesbury Avenue.
'We will relocate temporarily. Then, after the ten years or so it will take them to build the station, we hope to come back above the ticket office as a cinema. But that’s only in early negotiations.'
Last year it emerged that the Curzon Soho was being earmarked for removal by Transport for London to make way for a ticket hall for an enlarged Tottenham Court Road station as part of the proposed Crossrail 2 project.
Now it appears that those plans are still in play but that TfL is aware of the Save the Curzon campaign – supported by the likes of Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar and French actress Isabelle Huppert – and want to work with Curzon to find an answer.
'Thanks to the outpouring of emotion around the closure of our Soho venue due to the Crossrail construction, TfL are keen to find a solution to that problem,' Knatchbull said.
Curzon is also facing a parallel threat to its Curzon Mayfair cinema, and Knatchbull acknowledged the positive effect of a second public campaign to save that venue.
He said: 'The owner of the property above the Curzon Mayfair is keen to turn offices into "super flats". But following our appearance on ITV news we are now in the start of negotiations to settle that.
'The support we’ve had for our venues has been incredible. In four days we had 20,000 signatures of a petition to save the Mayfair venue. We have had pages and pages of positive comments online.'
You can sign the petition to save the Curzon Soho.
You can also sign the petition to save the Curzon Mayfair.